ME and Ophelia

BRITAIN MAY INTERVENE MILITARILY IN SUDAN -
UK supporting African Union and UN teams

17 June London VOA excerpt:

"Britain's foreign aid chief says the international community may have to intervene militarily in Sudan's western Darfur region if the security situation does not improve. International Development Secretary Hilary Benn discussed the Darfur crisis in an interview with VOA's Michael Drudge in London.

Mr. Benn says Britain is lending financial and moral support to an African Union mission, which hopes to deploy 120 cease-fire monitors in Darfur by the end of July. He says Britain also will fund a U.N. human rights monitoring team seeking Sudanese government permission to work in Darfur. However, he says if the fighting continues despite those efforts, the international community may have to consider military intervention.

Mr. Benn says the only long-term solution for Darfur will be a political settlement similar to what the Sudanese government has recently negotiated with a southern-based rebel movement to end a war that killed two million people."

Update: allAfrica Sudan Crisis: UK Donates further 15m. "According to a release made available to THISDAY by the Press and Public Affairs Section of the British High Commission in Abuja, the donation of oe15 million from the British Government brings to total oe36.5 million since September 2003."

June 17 Reuters: UN chief Kofi Annan expects to go to Sudan in the next few weeks and said today: 'I think it is the responsibility of the government to protect the population, and we need to encourage it and must insist it does it,' he told reporters at U.N. headquarters. 'And of course, if it is not able to protect them, the international community may have to assist the Sudanese government to do that, and the Sudanese government should be willing to accept that assistance,' he said. In a speech to mark the tenth anniversary of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Annan warned of the risk of genocide in Darfur and said a military force may be needed to help gain access to those affected by the conflict."

June 18 N'DJAMENA violent clashes in the Chad-Sudan border region, involving Chadian army troops and pro-Khartoum Arab militias, sparked fears the devastating conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region could widen still further. "There is a hidden force trying to export the conflict between the Sudanese into Chad," said Allami Ahmat, diplomatic advisor to Chadian President Idriss Deby.